


A Life Lived in the Warmth of Another

by robinasnyder



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9098368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/pseuds/robinasnyder
Summary: Chirrut and Baze have grown up together. Except for a few years of separation, they have been together at almost every moment. What they have built between them is a strong relationship built on a deep love. Also, sex.





	

They were raised alongside each other. Baze liked to remind him that he was six months, three days, seventeen hours, seven minutes and six seconds older than him. When they were kids it drove Chirrut crazy. But as they aged, Chirrut began to tease back. 

“Yes, and old man,” Chirrut would say when Baze tried to pull age to make Chirrut do anything. “So much older. Nearly ancient. Surely you will die long before me.” 

He never had to be able to see to know when Baze was scowling. 

His image of Baze was a blend. He looked like a combination of Baze’s father and Baze at eleven years old. If Chirrut ever got his sight back f or even a second he knew he would use it to see Baze’s face. He had known this even before they became lovers, but when they first begun to age away from childhood.

Chirrut had sight when he was a boy, until he was ten. He’d already begun his training to become as Guardian off the Whills. A sickness swept through Nijedah. Chirrut caught a terrible fever. The healers told him he was lucky to be alive and have a mind that worked after that. He was lucky that the spread of the disease’s identifying rash had only taken his eyes and not his ability to breath. 

Baze had stayed as close as he’d been allowed. He’d guided Chirrut around the temple by the hand for two years, even after Chirrut figured it out on his own. It was what Baze did. Baze was a romantic. He had been before he either of them knew what the word meant. 

Baze loved deeply. Chirrut knew this. It seemed like he knew it even before he knew it. He had Baze had been raised together. They entered training a year apart, and that year had been so painful for them both that they swore never to let it happen again. That promise would go unfulfilled when Baze broke with the faith and left the Church. That separation had spanned ten years. 

But when Baze returned for his father’s funeral…

Chirrut loathed and cherished the memory. He had been in his thirties, nearing forty by that point. Baze had been gone for over ten years. Chirrut didn’t expect Baze to be at the funeral. Chirrut had given up hope of Baze ever returning. When Chirrut’s parents died and Baze didn’t return, Chirrut had given up hope. Having been raised so close, Chirrut’s parents may as well have been Baze’s parents and Baze’s parents may as well have been Chirrut’s parents. 

Nothing Chirrut ever suffered had been as bad as the loss of his parents. He lost them both in an Empire raid. It was the beginning of the Empire mining NiJedah for everything it could give: Kyber Crystals, money, soldiers, and its last hopes and dreams. Both of his and Baze parents were part of the Church. Chirrut’s mother had trained boy Chirrut and Baze in staff before they were accepted to discipleship. His mother would have attacked the Empire when they tried to take the crystals, had she not already been past. The Empire set off a bomb in a close section of buildings in the city. They blamed it on terrorists and used it as an excuse to invade the city. 

The people of Nijedah wouldn’t learn that until later. 

But Chirrut had been three months from his thirtieth birthday. He had been his parent’s pride and joy. And then they were gone and he felt a vast gaping hole where his heart should have been. Whatever Baze hadn’t take when he left was ripped out. And Chirrut had no one to lean on. 

He gave up on Baze, in his way. He dreamed of Baze having found happiness far away. He prayed to the Force for it. But Chirrut truly believed that he would die alone. He would live out his life in isolation, trying to fight back as best he could. Most of the Master Guardians were dying. The Empire was killing them, Chirrut knew this. He was trying desperately complete his mastery. His blindness made the empire ignore him. But someone had to keep up the teaching of the Church. 

But Baze would never have been happy there. 

Chirrut helped to carry Baze’s father’s body. He was one of six men who carried the body in his shoulders. Others helped to build the pyre. Chirrut stood aside and soaked in the moment. He listened to people talk to each other. They were whispering stories about the dead, about his life and the years he’d dedicated to a Church that it was now illegal to join or openly participate in. They were lucky to still be allowed to gather so many to have funerals. They had heard that on other planets the Empire didn’t allow meetings of groups larger than five people. Many families were larger than five people!

Chirrut mentally grit his teeth and focused on something else. The wind was strong that night. The fire was warm on his front and his back was cold. He wore his robes openly. He was one of the few who could get away with that anymore. The others were all the elderly and women over the age of forty, people that the Empire considered of no threat or importance. The smell of smoke filled his nose. The body was wrapped with many number of spice and sweet smelling plants. They would help to hide the smell of burning flesh. The scent was supposed to be whatever reminded the grieving of the dead. 

Baze’s mother made him pick the scents. She said his nose was better. It was, but Chirrut knew she did this because he needed to do it. Like he knew that she needed to leave in the morning. She couldn’t stay in such a land of loss. Everyone at the pyre should know this would probably be one of the last traditional funerals the Empire would allow. 

He smelled him before Baze spoke. Everyone had a scent that was their own. Chirrut had roomed with Baze for more years than he hadn’t. Even with ten years of separation and Baze’s scent being burried under plasma and blast powder, Chirrut recognized it. 

“I did not think you would come home for this,” Chirrut said. 

“Why would I not?” Baze asked. He sounded hurt. There was a depth of pain there that Chirrut would later understand. Baze had seen so much and killed so many that he believed that no one could love him anymore. When Chirrut said that, Baze thought for a moment that the Force told Chirrut what he’d done. He thought Chirrut hated him. 

“Because you did not come home when my parents died.” Chirrut tried to not put too much pain into his voice. He still thought that Baze had a true life outside of the hopelessness of Jedah. He didn’t want Baze to come home out of guilt. He wanted someone he loved to be happy, even if Chirrut would be alone. 

But Baze had sucked in a breath of shock. Chirrut turned to face Baze. He wished he could see his face. Turning around to face someone was automatic from his youth. Also, it was polite. 

“They are gone?” Baze asked in a soft voice. 

“Yes,” Chirrut said back, speaking just as quietly. They were nearly pressed together already. 

“When?” Baze asked. 

“Three years after you left,” Chirrut said. 

“Oh Chi,” Baze had whispered. He’d drawn Chirrut into his arms then. 

They stayed together for the pyre. Baze found his mother to pay his respects and offer her some of his money and his letters of safe passage he had collected. He wouldn’t leave Chirrut’s side again. Not really. 

That was the night they first became lovers. 

The memory was as painful as it was precious for Chirrut, but then he assumed the pain just made it all the more important. Pain could bring good things sometimes. Their loss brought them back together in a way nothing else would have. 

Some fifteen years had passed since then. Baze was now 51 and Chirrut was only a few months past 50. 

“What does tonight mean to you?” Baze asked when he returned home to find the room lit with a number of candles. Chirrut lived in darkness, but the man he loved didn’t have to. When Chirrut was feeling romantic he lit candles. 

Baze understood. No one understood Chirrut like Baze did. 

“Nothing except that I wanted to make it special,” Chirrut said. He was already bare. 

He heard Baze suck in a breath and Chirrut smiled serenely. 

“How do I forget how beautiful you are?” Baze asked. 

“Because you have the memory of an insect?” Chirrut asked. He was still smiling. He dropped down onto their bed. It was little more than a plush cot tied off the ground to keep the bugs away. They struggled to make any money at all. When all seemed lost there would be a small windfall, and Chirrut would hold Baze closer. Chirrut knew Baze had taken another hit to keep Chirrut alive. 

But this was not one of those nights. Chirrut just wanted to give Baze something pure and beautiful for a night. That was what they did when they made love. It was purity. It was a wonderfully, powerfully, sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently important part of their lives. Because it allowed Chirrut to see in a way he could not otherwise. 

Baze shed his armor quickly and then climbed into bed. He pushed Chirrut down and claimed his mouth. Chirrut liked it when Baze did that. Baze knew he was a powerful warrior. And Chirrut knew Baze still worried about him and fussed like a mother bird did over her nestlings. But Chirrut also knew that Baze did this to protect his own heart. And Baze also knew that Chirrut would be every bit as lost without Baze as Baze would be without Chirrut.

They kissed for long moments. They had all the time in the world. When they were younger, sex had been much faster. They were rushing to an ends, desperate to both feel something powerful and vast and beyond themselves alone. But now they knew better. It wasn’t a race. It was ever second they spent pressed together. 

It was Chirrut’s firm, powerful sinews and muscles. It was Baze’s weight and large nature. It was skin and salty sweat and soft panting and whispered words of devotion. Chirrut lit up so much during sex. There were no question about who Baze was, about where he was or what was going on. Chirrut was never distracted by other sounds or feelings. It was all Baze. 

Chirrut had always been easily distracted. Years of training and experience allowed him to channel that into a way to protect himself. He noticed everything. But it was overwhelming sometimes. Sex was never overwhelming. In its own way, it was singular. It was just them and nothing could get to them in those moments. 

Chirrut didn’t exactly have a plan for that night. Baze rolled them over. He let Chirrut to straddle his wide chest, and laid his hands of Chirrut’s thighs for support. Chirrut’s hands went to Baze’s face. This was how he could see his lover. He touched everywhere. He knew every crevice, wrinkle and hair. He knew whom he loved. He loved to touch. He would touch everywhere he was allowed. 

“You have no idea what you do to me,” Baze said quietly. 

“You do not know what you do to me,” Chirrut replied. His heart was pounding. He felt like his chest would explode from the feelings he felt for Baze. He loved him. How had he ever thought he could live without him? 

“I love you,” Baze said. His big, rough hands squeezed Chirrut’s thighs. Chirrut shuttered a little. Later, Baze would wrap one arm around Chirrut’s chest to ground him. With the other hand he slick Chirrut up, stretch him and make Chirrut beg to feel more of his lover. It would end like that because Chirrut would ask for it. He may not even need to ask. Chirrut felt so attuned to Baze. 

Sex felt like the Force. It felt like Chirrut could feel what Baze would do, like he could know him completely. They were a funny couple in a way. Baze had given up his belief in the Force years before, in part because of the illness that had taken Chirrut’s vision. Baze did not let himself believe in a world that had an all fluid, all surrounding, all knowing Force that would not protect and love Chirrut as Baze himself did. 

But Chirrut’s faith was built on a foundation Baze laid. Because he protected Chirrut. He gave love and support and mental silence when Chirrut’s mind wouldn’t stop. The Force provided. Sex with Baze was almost like ceremony, although the elders, those still alive, would say that was folly. Chirrut didn’t care. 

Baze allowed Chirrut to keep touching. He let Chirrut smell him, smell the man under the person Baze had to be for them to survive. He let Chirrut taste his skin. Chirrut could almost see Baze in those moments. It was like what he imagined truly feeling the Force was like. It was understanding in pitch blackness. He could see Baze without seeing him. Because the Force was with them, in them, and they were in the Force.

In the end, Baze took Chirrut apart exactly as Chirrut wanted. And Chirrut didn’t have to ask or indicate. The candles had burned down to nothing by then. 

“I like it when it’s like this,” Baze told him. It was pitch black to him too.

“Why?” Chirrut asked. He wouldn’t roll over to face Baze. Oh, but Chirrut wanted to kiss him again. It was like an addiction. He let out a soft whimper. 

Baze pushed himself up on his elbow and fumbled his lips to Chirrut’s. They kissed for a few moments until Chirrut felt sated. Chirrut pulled back with a happy sigh. 

“Why?” he asked again.

Baze chucked in Chirrut’s ear. “Impatient,” he said. “I like it because I feel closer to you. I feel what you feel. You are just as beautiful in the dark as you are in the light.” He laid his hand on Chirrut’s face. Chirrut understood. The feel of him must be as beautiful to Baze as the feel of Baze was to him. 

“You are as beautiful in the dark as you must be in the light,” Chirrut said. He captured Baze’s lips for another kiss. 

They shared a few more kisses until they settled down to sleep. They were tangled together. It was a cold night. They would survive by the warmth of each other. But really, that was how they’d always survived.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to write a story with these two. I love the idea off Baze being a soft hearted man hidden behind a hard façade. Also, Chirrut has ADHD in this story. There's not really a term for that for them, but Chirrut and Baze have learned how to deal with it.
> 
> I wanted to make something sexy but also explore the characters.


End file.
